Explanation:
The Trifid Nebula,
also
known as Messier 20,
is easy to find with a small telescope, a well known stop in the
nebula rich constellation
Sagittarius.
But where
visible light
pictures show the nebula divided into
three parts by dark, obscuring dust lanes,
this
penetrating infrared image
reveals filaments of glowing dust clouds and newborn stars.
The spectacular false-color view is courtesy of the
Spitzer
Space Telescope.
Astronomers have used the Spitzer
infrared image data
to count newborn and
embryonic
stars which otherwise can lie hidden in the
natal dust and gas clouds of this intriguing
stellar nursery.
As seen here, the Trifid is about 30 light-years across and
lies only 5,500 light-years away.
Explanation:
A mere 2.5 million light-years away the Andromeda Galaxy, also
known as M31, really is just next door as large galaxies go.
So close
and spanning
some 260,000 light-years, it took 11 different image fields from the
Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) satellite's
telescope to produce this gorgeous portrait of the spiral galaxy in
ultraviolet light.
While its spiral arms stand out in
visible light images of Andromeda,
the arms look more like rings in
the
GALEX ultraviolet view,
a view dominated by the energetic light from hot, young, massive stars.
As sites of intense star formation, the rings have been interpreted as
evidence Andromeda collided with its smaller neighboring elliptical
galaxy M32 more than 200 million years ago.
The large Andromeda galaxy
and our own Milky Way are the most massive members of the
local
galaxy group.
Explanation:
A 50 mile (80 kilometer)
trip across Pluto
would cover the distance indicated by the scale bar
in this startling image.
The close-up of the icy world's
rugged equatorial terrain
was captured when the
New Horizons spacecraft was about
47,800 miles (77,000 kilometers) from the surface, 1.5 hours before
its closest approach.
Rising to an estimated 11,000 feet (3,500 meters)
the mountains are likely composed of water ice.
Suggesting surprising geological activity,
they are also likely young
with an estimated age of 100 million years or so based on
the apparent absence of craters.
The region pictured is
near the base of Pluto's broad, bright, heart-shaped feature.
Explanation:
Icy world Charon is 1,200 kilometers across.
That makes Pluto's largest moon only about 1/10th the
size of planet Earth but a whopping 1/2 the diameter of
Pluto
itself.
Charon is seen in unprecedented
detail in this image from
New Horizons.
The image was captured late July 13
during
the spacecraft's flight through the Plutonian system
from a range of less than 500,000 kilometers.
For reference, the distance separating Earth and Moon is less than
400,000 kilometers.
Charonian terrain,
described as
surprising,
youthful, and varied, includes
a 1,000 kilometer swath of cliffs and troughs stretching below center,
a 7 to 9 kilometer deep canyon cutting the curve of the upper right edge,
and an enigmatic dark north polar region
unofficially
dubbed Mordor.
Explanation: It took 9.5 years
to get this close, but you can now
take a virtual flight over Pluto in this
animation of image data from the
New Horizons spacecraft.
The Plutonian terrain unfolding 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers)
below is identified as Norgay Montes, followed by Sputnik Planum.
The icy mountains, informally named for one of the
first two Mount Everest climbers Tenzing Norgay,
reach up to 11,000 feet (3,500 meters)
above the surface.
The frozen, young, craterless plains
are informally named for the Earth's first artificial satellite.
Sputnik Planum is north
of Norgay Montes, within Pluto's expansive, bright,
heart-shaped feature provisionally known as Tombaugh Regio for
Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.
Explanation:
A comet has brightened quickly and unexpectedly.
Discovered last year,
Comet C/2014 Q1 (PanSTARRS) is expected to be
visible now for a few days to the unaided eye,
just after sunset, from some locations.
The comet rounded the Sun on July 6 and apparently has shed quite a bit of gas and dust.
Today it is now as close as it will ever get to the Earth, which is another factor in its
recent great apparent brightness
and the large angular extent of its tails.
In the featured image taken two days ago,
Comet PanSTARRS is seen sporting a short white dust
tail fading to the right, and a long blue
ion tail pointing away from the recently set Sun.
A crescent moon dominates the image center.
Tomorrow,
Comet PannSTARRS will pass only 7 degrees away from a bright
Jupiter, with even brighter Venus nearby.
Due to its proximity to the Sun, the
comet
and its tails may best be seen in the sunset din with binoculars or cameras using long-duration exposures.
Explanation: After
grazing the western horizon on northern summer evenings
Comet PanSTARRS (also known as C/2014 Q1)
climbed higher in southern winter skies.
A
visitor to the inner Solar System discovered in August 2014
by the prolific panSTARRS survey,
the comet was captured here on July 17.
Comet and colorful tails
were imaged from Home Observatory in Mackay, Queensland, Australia.
The field of view spans just over 1 degree.
Sweeping quickly across a the sky
this comet PanSTARRS
was closest to planet Earth about 2 days later.
Still, the faint stars of the constellation Cancer left short trails
in the telescopic image aligned to track the comet's rapid motion.
PanSTARRS' bluish ion tails stream away from the Sun, buffetted
by the solar wind.
Driven by
the pressure of sunlight, its more diffuse yellowish dust
tail is pushed outward and lags behind the comet's orbit.
A good
target for binoculars from southern latitudes,
in the next few days the comet will sweep through skies near
Venus, Jupiter, and bright star Regulus.
Explanation:
If gamma-rays were raindrops a flare from a
supermassive black hole might look like this.
Not so gently falling on the
Fermi
Gamma-ray Space Telescope from June 14 to June 16 the
gamma-ray
photons, with energies up to 50 billion electron volts,
originated in active galaxy 3C 279 some 5 billion light-years away.
Each gamma-ray "drop" is an expanding circle in the
timelapse visualization, the color and maximum size determined by the
gamma-ray's
measured energy.
Starting with a background drizzle, the sudden downpour
that then trails off is the intense, high energy flare.
The
creative and calming presentation of the historically bright
flare covers a 5 degree wide region of
the gamma-ray sky centered on 3C 279.
Explanation:
Why does the Sombrero Galaxy look like a hat?
Reasons include the
Sombrero's unusually large and extended central bulge of stars,
and dark prominent dust lanes
that appear in a disk that we see nearly
edge-on.
Billions of old stars
cause the diffuse glow of the extended central bulge.
Close inspection of the bulge in the
abovephotograph shows many points of light that are actually
globular clusters.
M104's spectacular dust
rings harbor many younger
and brighter stars, and show intricate details astronomers
don't yet fully understand.
The very center of the
Sombrero glows across the
electromagnetic spectrum, and is thought to house a large
black hole.
Fifty million-year-old light from the
Sombrero Galaxy can be seen with a
small telescope towards the constellation of Virgo.
Source - NASA
